


Undead By Daylight

by Vatteville



Category: Dead by Daylight (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Gen, Minor Character Death, Multi, POV Second Person, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-07
Updated: 2018-04-03
Packaged: 2019-03-28 02:50:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13894641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vatteville/pseuds/Vatteville
Summary: Don't be fooled; this story isn't really about the zombies.





	1. Chapter 1

There _was_ movement in the third floor windows, so the detour _hadn’t_ been a waste. Eat it, self-doubt.

The facility had three fences, and even for a wiry gal like yourself, that was a hindrance. At least there wasn’t any power - they could’ve been electrified, as evidenced by the ‘high voltage’ signs.

You considered using the front entrance, but something told you the people inside wouldn’t take to strangers. Call it a hunch.

Luckily the building was old - plenty of footholds worn into the facade. You pulled yourself level with a second floor window and, finding it unsecured, slipped inside.

Dark, of course, but your eyes would adjust. There were shelves and cabinets that you halfheartedly rummaged through - all highly specific medical tools. Some of those elbow-length, heavy-duty cleaning gloves, which you took. Packaged scalpels; you took a couple of those as well. Next, spare scalpel blades, which you made sure to tuck away for later.

Looting medical supplies was fun, but you were really on the hunt for packaged food or water. Weapons could wait.

One floor up there was a desk. No batteries or tools, just paper and pens and things. You took a couple of pencils. Fine.

You were digging through the closet when the door opened and this huge guy walked in. You froze with nowhere to go; he crossed the room in three strides and boxed you in.

“Wait-” you started to plead your case, but he just pushed you back into the closet.

“Be _silent_ ,” he ordered, and you obeyed as he shut the door.

You heard someone else enter the room and begin conversation with the big guy. The newcomer talked a lot more, and faster, while the big guy only said a few things at a time - and quietly, like he was talking to a scared animal. You couldn’t really make out what they were saying, but you got the impression that the new man was the big one’s superior just from the tone and rhythm of the conversation.

When you heard the conversation taper off, and the door close, you waited until the closet opened. The man - he had to be seven feet tall, it was ridiculous - huffed irritably.

“You should leave.” He had turned away and was engaging with some papers on the desk, as if you weren’t even worth his attention. You rounded the desk and planted your hands on it, forcing him to look at you.

“I’m looking for supplies.”

“Aren’t we all,” he grumbled. “I can’t get you any.”

“Don’t have to. Just tell me where they are.”

He refused to make eye contact. “No.”

You waited but he offered no further explanation. “What do you mean, ‘no’?”

“I mean, _no_. You’re very lucky. Most people try to come in the front.” He shuffled the papers around, sighed, and gave up. Hands in pockets, he straightened to his full height and regarded you with tired eyes. “You should leave,” he repeated, softer this time.

“Just tell me where the food and water are.”

“They’re guarded,” he said. “Look, just-” he stalked over to the highest closet shelf, too high for you to search. Retrieving a water bottle and handing it to you - “just take this and _go_.”

“But-”

“ _Get out of here_ ,” he said forcefully.

“What is this place?”

He let out a slow hiss of breath. “Don't stay long enough to find out,” he said finally, as he herded you to the window. “And tell people to stay away.”

You paused halfway out of the window. “Thanks.”

He looked over at you and shook his head as if you had said something wrong. His hands were clenched into pale-knuckled fists. You felt a shiver run through you as you lowered yourself from the sill.


	2. Chapter 2

        “ _Tell people to stay away._ ”

His words echoed in your head as you crouched beside Jake and David at the entrance. The outer fences had mostly crumbled in the three months since your first visit, and some of the windows were shattered, but the building remained no less stark and menacing, like a worn tombstone.

        “ _You’re very lucky. Most people try to come in the front._ ”

“We shouldn’t have come here,” you whispered.

“We have no choice,” David said firmly. “We’ll be fine. We can comb each floor as we go up and kill anything that moves.”

Easy for him to say, you thought: he had his service pistol and taser on him. Not to mention the body armor.

“Look at this place,” you hissed. “It’s a brick. There’s only one way in and out - if we get stuck in there -”

“If you didn’t want us to come here, you shouldn’t have brought it up,” David said. “ _We’ll be fine_. Ready?”

“Ready,” Jake said from his position at the other side of the doorway.

You sighed; it was too late to turn back now, anyway. “Fine,” you conceded, and the three of you entered.

The lobby was completely empty: there were shapes in the dust that suggested furniture, but it must’ve been cleared out - perhaps for firewood. There was a haphazard pile of gutted machinery in the far corner, and a stairwell across from it. A circular reception desk stood alone near the door.

“Nothing,” David announced. As if you weren’t looking at the same damn room.

Upstairs was a long hallway with few doors to add texture. It was much darker than the ground floor, with only a single window at the end of the hallway near the next set of stairs. The air here seemed different; almost colder. Something sinister hung in the atmosphere.

Jake and David seemed to cotton to this as well, the latter taking a defensive stance as the three of you inched down the hall.

The first room was the same one you'd searched three months ago. It was empty now, as the first floor had been. Jake fished a torn glove out of a vent near the door and eyed it quizzically.

Also like the first floor, there was a heap of metal in one corner. You looked it over, but it was mostly bent wires and used batteries. At least, you assumed they were used - a couple were busted and crusty with battery acid.

“Useless,” David said, and you didn't miss his accusatory look.

The other rooms were similarly cleaned out. Jake found more spare scalpel blades in one room, and you dug up some stitching supplies from a pile in another, but the place was nearly bare, save the last room.

It was almost completely buried in furniture, which you assumed had been moved from the other parts of the building. David wanted to search the piles, but after nearly falling victim to a cascade of office chairs, even he conceded that it wasn't worth the risk.

He paused behind you at the stairwell. “I hope the noise didn't-”

And as the big man from your first visit barreled into him from the doorway you'd just left, all three of you acknowledged that the noise indeed _did_.

David couldn't do much more than groan after being hit with a car-sized human, and the man grabbed Jake and tossed him against the other wall with surprising speed.

He met eyes with you - you were a few steps up, so your face was at his eye level - and you could see his skin had been overtaken by a deathly pallor. But he wasn't a zombie; his eyes, though bloodshot, were clearly alive. He swayed on his feet, fists clenching and unclenching, as Jake and then David lurched for the stairs.

He was grimacing like he was in pain, and you noticed as he slowly took a step forwards that his face was _coated_ in sweat. Seeing him in this state made your stomach turn like you were looking at something _unnatural_ -

He took another slow, faltering step. David and Jake had both climbed past you. He locked eyes again and behind a veneer of fury you saw _fear_.

“ _Run,_ ” he rasped, blood on his lips.

Jake pulled you by the arm, but he needn't have bothered. The man slammed into the wall on the landing just behind you and you bit back a scream. His massive hands nearly caught your jacket but you pulled free and tore after David, quickly overtaking Jake on the stairs and pulling him behind you. All the while the man was bellowing, “ _Run!_ ” and charging after you.

You remembered the third-floor room and, surging past David with renewed vigor, you threw the first door open. David and Jake followed without hesitation and the three of you shoved the desk in front of the door just moments before your pursuer plowed into it at full force.

Evidently, that impact stunned him - after the first deafening slam: silence.

Jake went straight for the windows, examining the facade of the building by craning his neck over the sill. David, panting hard, just leaned against a wall and caught his breath. You went for the closet.

You clambered up the shelves, but found them all empty - even the top. Shit.

You turned around when you heard David cock his gun.

“Wait. Wait!” You whispered urgently.

He looked over at you with a withering stare.

“He's - he, I - last time I came here -” You ran your hands down your face. Fuck. Fuck! What the _fuck_ was this place?! “He let us run. I don't think he's trying to - don't think he wants to kill us.”

David glared. “Doesn't want - he nearly killed me just then! Jake, how's the window?” He sounded more hoarse than usual, likely due to having the wind knocked out of him.

Jake shrugged. “Looks unstable.”

You took a look for yourself and had to agree; since your last visit, it seemed the wall below had fallen into critical disrepair. _Above,_ on the other hand-

“We need to climb higher,” you said.

Jake and David both looked incredulous.

“Are you _kidding_ me?”

“No, I - there's something going on here. David, come on, why would he have told us to run if he wanted to kill us?”

The ex-cop frowned. “He told us to run?”

Jake nodded.

“Shit, I was already running. Sorry; I thought - you really think something weird is going on here?”

“That guy, the guy we just saw, was - he was here last time I came; he gave me water. He told me not to come back here. I - he wouldn't tell me what this place was. He looked - just now - he looked _scared_.”

David’s brow furrowed in thought, eyes flitting back and forth as he thought through everything that had transpired. “...Jake?” he said finally.

Jake ducked his head at the attention. “I believe Meg.”

David gave this a bit more thought. “I don't like this,” he murmured. His gaze grew steely. “But if something _is_ going on…”

You couldn't help but grin. The prospect of solving this place's mystery was madly enticing.

“But if he tries to kill us...!” David warned. Reluctantly, you nodded in understanding.

* * *

Upon pushing away the desk and cracking open the door, you found the hallway thankfully empty. Hearing nothing from the other rooms, David led the group up the next set of stairs; these led to a small reception room with a single door.

“Nowhere else to go,” he breathed. Just as you had done at the building’s entrance, you crouched together by the doorway.

David made to nudge the door open, but Jake caught his hand. He held one finger to his lips, and you listened intently. Sure enough, there was a dialogue going on within the next room. The voices were too quiet to hear, but the intermittent electrical buzzing was blatant. You winced.

Jake let go of David’s wrist and the former cop nudged the door open without making a sound.

The big fellow from before was up against the far wall, facing the door. Though by far the taller, he was cowering before a rail-thin man with white hair. This slim phantom had in his hands a massive cattle prod, which - judging by the burns on the big man’s face, neck, and arms - he was putting to use. There was an ugly black box on the thin man’s belt with some blinking lights - you couldn't make heads nor tails of the thing.

The big man inevitably glanced your way as the door slid open, though you could tell by his face the instant he saw you he regretted it. The other, noticing the glance, didn't even bother turning.

He hummed with sinister calm. “Good thing, too - you wouldn't be so lucky if they had gotten away.”

He deigned to grace you with his attention, then, turning on his heel with a practiced grace. The big man took one step forward, hand reaching for his superior’s neck - but just as quickly the slim man’s long fingers found the box at his waist, and the big man crumpled to the floor with nothing more than a sharp intake of breath. All three of you froze, stunned at the depth of control the man had shown himself to possess.

“Behave, Herman,” the man simpered. He looked down to regard his subject with mixed pity and disappointment. “Go on. Take care of them.”

‘Herman’ dragged himself upright with all the speed he could muster, and readied himself to charge towards you, when suddenly David - who had overcome his shock - fired his pistol into the wall an inch from the thin man’s shoulder.

He didn't so much as flinch, but Herman had paused in his approach, and you took that opportunity to sprint at the thin man head-on. This caught him off-guard, and he couldn't bring the cattle prod level in time to stop you from knocking him to the ground.

This, oddly enough, prompted Herman to change directions, now lumbering towards you. The man fumbled for his belt, and Herman faltered, hard, nearly falling again. Observing this, you ground your heel into the man’s wrist before he could do anything further, but you had forgotten about his other hand. The end of the cattle prod nudged up against your abdomen and it was like someone had set you on fire; it was like every part of you had shut off except the part that was yelling at you to flee.

You threw yourself in the opposite direction of the shock, Jake caught you before you could fall over backwards, and David fired another shot, this one hitting the man in the arm - though, unfortunately, not the one holding the weapon. Herman’s ungainly stagger drove his legs right into range, and the resulting shock knocked him to his knees. The thin man swiped at his belt with his wounded hand, and Herman’s head whipped around, his eyes ( _exhausted_ ) meeting yours resolutely.

“The box,” you said weakly, tongue like rubber. Jake, understanding, dodged Herman’s dogged advance and fell knee-first into the box, catching the cattle prod in his shoulder for the trouble. Not in vain, though, as the box shattered and sparked, and Herman skidded to a stop with his hand mere inches from your throat.

The room seemed to freeze. David slowly lowered his pistol from where he'd had it aimed right between Herman’s eyes; the thin man looked down at his belt with utter surprise; Jake curled up into a ball after the shock… you and Herman stood apart from each other, eyes locked.

Then Herman wheeled around and you realized that this was over.

The thin man struggled to raise the cattle prod, but Herman tore it out of his hands with laughable ease. He planted his shoes on the man’s forearms and without the slightest hesitation drove the end of the cattle prod into his mouth.

You looked away - you saw David wincing as well - but you knew without knowing that Herman was watching for the duration. When it was finished - when you could no longer hear the sporadic thud of the thin man’s shoes as his legs spasmed against the floor - you dared to look back. And the three of you watched as Herman withdrew the cattle prod, stepped gingerly off of the man's arms, and kicked him over onto his front, so that his face would never grace his vision again.

Herman straightened to his full height and turned back to the three of you, sitting, standing, and lying - you presumed - in open-mouthed horror.

“I guess I should thank you,” he said. Then he turned, wobbled a few steps from the fresh corpse, fell to one knee, and promptly vomited.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [My H.Carter-centric suan.fm playlist](http://suan.fm/mix/BklZ6vjPz)   
>  [Tumblr for writing/music discussions or something of that ilk](http://vatteville.tumblr.com)
> 
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> Thanks for reading!


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